ESX 3.0.2 and IEEE 802.3ad and LACP trunks

[laba1]

Hi.

I am trying to set up a link aggregation group between a couple of our ESX 3.0.2 servers and 3Com LAN switches. The 3Com switches supports IEEE 802.3ad trunks with and without LACP. I also know that ESX 3.0.2 supports NIC teaming/bonding, but can't find any documentation that tells whether or not LACP trunk ar supported.

Does anyone know anything about this and if there are any special settings I need to consider to make this work?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Lars

[lukas_radil]

Hi,

1st think - esx supports only static teams. When you want use LACP on physical switch you must use vSwitch Load Balance policy Based on IP hash. Other information, but realy not detalied are here and here

2nd think if you dont need more than 1gbps per Single VM IMHO is much easier using route based on source mac hash policy and you dont need any configuration on physical switch.

Lukas

[laba1]

Thanks for the answer Lukas. I know that RedHat Enterprise Linux supports NIC bonding and IEEE 802.3 LACP dynamic trunks for load sharing etc. Since part of the ESX kernel is based on Redhat I wondered if NIC bonding was supported on ESX as well.

I have tested with the VSwitch setup you suggest and disabling STP on the physical 3Com switch, but this is really not optimal use of the bandwidth and I will still have to do some testing on this. We have HP DL 38x and DL58x servers with 5-15 VMs on each and some of these struggle with bandwidth.

Lars

[joergriether]

Dear Lars,

i´ve been through this again and again and finally discovered that i made the best results by leaving the teaming setting at default and don´t set neither lacp nor normal trunking on the pswitch.

btw: red had is not part of esx kernel, never was. only the cos runs on red hat. esx 3i will run without red hat at all.

best regards

Joerg

[laba1]

Hi Joerg.

Thanks for the answer. It is though disappointing that ESX server 3.0.2 does not support this although there is a great need for it.

Regards,

Lars